10 Things You Absolutely Need to Know to Start a Civil Lawsuit Here in New York

1. Lawsuits seek to compensate you for your injuries.

They compensate you for:

Your lost wages, and your future lost wages,

Your medical expenses, both past and future, and

Your pain and the suffering it caused in the past, and for the future

2. Lawsuits do not directly seek to harm anyone’s reputation.

3. A doctor who is sued will not lose his medical license if the lawsuit is successful.

4. A lawsuit attempts to compensate the injured victim, and at the same time, try to ensure that the same type of bad treatment is not repeated in another patient.

5. “A lawsuit is not a lottery.”

This phrase is often used by defense attorneys during jury selection to remind jurors that their job is not simply to allow the injured victim to ‘hit it big’ and award huge amounts of unjustified money.

A more realistic approach to a lawsuit is for reasonable, full and fair compensation to allow you to recover all of your past and future expenses, and all of your past and future pain and suffering compensation.

6. You don’t have to pay any money upfront to an attorney to handle your case. There is no ‘hourly fee’.

Medical Malpractice and injury cases are generally handled on contingency.

That means that the attorney fee depends upon you winning your case. If you lose, the attorney loses as well, and receives no fee.

The expenses that the attorney pays to prosecute your case are technically supposed to be repaid by the client in the event the case is lost. However, as a personal matter, I have never asked a client to reimburse me for my expenses if I lose a case. It just doesn’t make sense to do so, and in my personal opinion, it’s bad business.

However, some attorneys do require this, so make sure you ask first before you make your decision.

7. Not every attorney has the same experience.

Ask your attorney how many years they’ve been in practice,

Ask the attorney what percentage of medical malpractice or accident cases he handles compared to other types of cases,

The material on this website is for informational purposes only. Mr. Oginski practices law exclusively in the State of New York. We do not practice law in any other State. Please do not send any written materials to this office until you have spoken and/or communicated with us. We cannot consider you a client until such time as we have consulted with you, and met with you personally. Since all cases are different and legal authority can and does change, it is important to remember that prior results cannot and do not guarantee similar outcomes with respect to any future matter in which any lawyer or law firm may be retained. To the extent that this website discusses past cases the firm has handled, or in any way mentions the firm or its services, New York courts may deem this to be attorney advertising.